1. Niche down
Statista estimates that the number of bloggers in the U.S will reach 31.7 million by 2020. And that’s only the U.S!
Which means: if you’re starting a blog today, there’s a lot of competition.
Luckily, there is a way to stand out and attract readers to your blog:
Go niche.
What does that mean?
It means focusing on a hyper-specific topic and becoming the go-to expert on that topic.
For example, if you’re starting a travel blog, you might focus on only UK travel. If you’re starting a business blog, maybe starting a successful home-based business for time-strapped parents is the way to go.
Later, once your blog has gained some traction, you can branch out and cover broader topics.
This is what we did at Ahrefs. We started out focusing solely on SEO and trying to do it better than everyone else. This helped kickstart our initial growth spurt.
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It was only in 2018 that we started to cover broader topics like marketing ideas and podcast advertising.
It’s not just us either. Plenty of top bloggers started the same way.
Mark Manson’s blog was originally about masculinity and dating. Ramit Sethi, founder of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, started his blog by writing about the intersection of psychology and personal finance.
The lesson is clear: if you want to gain traction, niche down.
2. Write about topics people are searching for
51% of all website traffic comes from organic search. Which means: for your blog to do well, you need to write about topics people are searching for.
The question is: how do you find such topics?
The answer: Use a keyword research tool to generate ideas.
For example, you can enter a keyword into AnswerThePublic—a free tool—and it’ll show you related questions people are typing into Google.
